


Substitutes

by thinkpink20



Category: The OC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkpink20/pseuds/thinkpink20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan tries not to think about what it means when he hears Seth left Newport ten minutes after he did. (End of season 1.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substitutes

Ryan tries not to think about what it means when he hears Seth left Newport ten minutes after he did. Ryan doesn’t think it matters now anyway, because he’s in Chino, and it’s back to being every man for himself. He’s got no time to think about what might have been. Or should have been.

Theresa is cranky in the mornings, and he learns to avoid her, side-stepping her in the kitchen as she makes them both tea and slams the cups down on the yellowing worktop. Sometimes she slams like she’s trying to make a point, and sometimes she slams like she’s just pissed off at the world. Ryan knows how she feels on that last one, but he’s not sure about point making, because he’s decided it’s an area of his brain he’s not going to investigate. Why go, and not leave a note for him?

In the evenings, when all he wants to do is sit around and ignore the pain in his lower back, Theresa baby-sits for one of her girlfriends down the street. When Ryan lived in Chino the first time round, Theresa never had any girlfriends, she was always with him and Arturo and Trey. They used to go down to the 7/11 and steal candy when the clerk wasn’t looking, then they would sit on the old building site and share their stash. Until he hit fourteen, Ryan had never seen Theresa as a girl – she was his best friend and that was all that mattered, until one night they were lying on the hood of Arturo’s (stolen) car watching the stars, and he looked over, catching sight of her cleavage. He tried not to stare but she noticed him and laughed. From then on it had been like a joke, he would stare and she would take his hand and lay it on the top button of her shirt until he undressed her.

It wasn’t so much of a joke any more.

Baby-sitting gives Ryan nausea these days, it’s like one big prophesy that he can’t get away from and the noise of the baby crying rings in his ears hours afterwards. He’s developed this annoying habit of wondering what Seth would do in every situation and he hates that he finds himself sitting in baby puke and wondering what witty line Seth would come up with. Maybe Seth wouldn’t say anything, because it doesn’t seem like he’s speaking to him right now anyway.

One afternoon when Ryan is flipping stations on the TV, desperate for some Batman cartoons or episodes of The Valley, Theresa comes out of their bedroom with a basket full of washing. On instinct he rushes over and takes it from her, carrying it to the washing machines but as he does he sees the look on her face. She’s about to order him to do something, but put it in a subtle way. He hates that.

“You should enrol at Chino Hills again, finish senior year.”

Ryan wants to say something sarcastic, but his muse is on a sailboat in the Pacific so he just nods, and pretends to listen when she starts to speak about how important it is that he graduates high school.

But it’s not. It’s not important that he finish high school. It’s important that he’s happy, and that he knows where he’s going in life, and that he feels at home in the place he lives, and that he knows who it is he loves.

It’s also kind of important that said person loves him back, but Ryan isn’t thinking about that. At all.

On the building site there is a guy named Josh, who has a girlfriend, and several ex-girlfriends, all of whom he talks about at every chance he gets. Ryan doesn’t buy it for one moment, but he would never try anything first, he’s just not well practised enough yet.

One night though, when they go out for drinks, Josh waits until Ryan excuses himself to the bathroom and follows him. At the urinal they don’t speak, but Josh stares and Ryan feels himself swallow, hard. He thinks about Seth when Josh pulls him outside via the staff entrance and kisses him roughly in the back alley.

Ryan’s kissed boys before, at drunken parties and once even in Newport when he was first there, on a night out with Donnie. Josh is no different, although he doesn’t hesitate when he reaches for the button on Ryan’s jeans. It feels easy to let him when all Ryan has been living with for the past few months is his fist, and imaging that hand is Seth’s doesn’t take too much effort. He even repeats Seth’s name over and over in his head like a hymn whilst his bottom lip is being nipped and tugged on. Seth would kiss like this, rough and urgent.

When Josh drops to his knees in the dirt of the club’s back yard, Ryan screws his eyes up tight so that he doesn’t notice the hair he’s burying his hands in is dirty blond, not black. He tries to block out the wail of police sirens in the distance that tell him he’s in Chino, not Newport, and he definitely doesn’t notice the hard brick wall behind his head reminding him this isn’t his fantasy of the pool house. 

Ryan’s not a noisy kind of guy but he can’t quite stop himself from whispering Seth’s name at least once during the whole process, just as Josh’s fingers flicker up his thigh and across his balls. It’s been so long since....anything, that Ryan comes right there and then.

He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if this gets out. He will get kicked into next week, and he can’t explain that to Theresa.

He feels dirty as he returns the favour, like no matter how many showers he has after this, he’ll never get clean, and certainly never clean enough to ever sleep in a Newport bed again. With Josh’s come in his mouth, Ryan thinks he might vomit, but how bad would that look? So he swallows and wipes his mouth and wishes Seth was there. He doesn’t know what Seth would do, how he would help the situation, because it’s usually Ryan doing the saving, but still, he needs someone to save right now.

Back in the smoky den with cold bottles of beer, it’s like nothing ever happened. Josh doesn’t meet his eyes and when he does they’re empty, innocent, regular.

Ryan isn’t sure whether to be alarmed by the change in character or thankful.

After that things seem easier to bare, lying next to Theresa, both of them pretending to be asleep, Ryan imagines Seth on his knees and remembers the tight pull of hands in his hair, forcing him forward and backward. At least he has something to work with now. Ryan tries not to think that if he ever, ever gets a chance, at least it won’t be the first blow job he’s given, and hopefully he can make it convincing enough so that Seth never wants to look at a sailboat again.

Ryan knows he’s living a half-life, never fully existing because he’s in a place that stifles who he can be. He knows that nothing will ever seem right while he’s here anyway, so why try to make the little things better? And he holds a hope that maybe one day things will change.

Until then he’ll continue not thinking about the things he should be addressing, and he'll look away whenever he sees boys with black curls. It hurts too much to hope.


End file.
